Be silly, be honest, be kind – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Fictional

It’s a vast sea of colours. Pink, blue, green, purple, orange, yellow. If you squint it looks like someone squirted many tubes of paint onto a canvas and smeared them all together. The intensity of the colours is only overtaken by the sound that grows louder and louder the closer I get to the street.

Passion. Anger. It’s a protest.

What are they protesting? It’s a passing thought as my focus is on getting back to that spot in the pavement. That slightly uneven spot in the pavement where I stumbled earlier. I must have dropped it there. I must have. Why is the pavement uneven? Is there perhaps a root underneath that is uplifting the cement? It too a passing thought as I push past women, children.

Fear. Regret. A really big mistake.

He warned me not to even bring it with me. Where are all the men? The ragged thumping near my chest grows as I edge closer and closer to the fountain. Thump. Thump. Silence. A small boy squatting with something in his fingers.

Passion. Anger. It’s a protest.

Perhaps on instinct, he turns. Maybe 6, dark curly hair, eyes that dance. Why is he running? I tell my brain to tell my feet to run after him but nothing happens. It’s like a dream and my legs are filled with cement. How can the boy know it’s value. I yell out stop as I try and remember the local language.

Fear. Regret. A really big mistake

This mistake was the misjudgment of distance. Add red to the list of colours on show as warm blood spills onto yet another bump in the pavement. It must be a uplifted root. The child is gone. Around a corner? Hiding behind a sign marked ‘NO MORE..’. What is this protest? Salty tears. Broken sobs.